The Bookshelf
by SuckMyPeetato
Summary: Derek remembers his first love and contemplates his life, past, present, and future.


It hurt. It still hurt. It would always hurt. He had accepted that. There was no way to ebb the ache that was carved into his heart, left by the woman who he had loved, the woman he would always love, no matter what the future held. Sure, in theory, a breakup is a breakup. It's no big deal. Two people separate, part their ways and diverge onto two separate paths in their lives. So what?

Despite that obvious stream of logic, Derek could never seem to stop loving Paige no matter how hard he tried. They had broken up so many years ago, and yet still, from time to time, the memories would creep up. The love and the pain would raise from the depths of his heart, like a healed wound that would never stop being tender and could always flare up at any given moment for no particular fucking reason. Why should it hurt so damn bad? Why should it _still_ hurt?

He had moved on. Really, he had. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that he was never going to be okay with the fact that he had lost her. His Paige. He had lost an entire life that he had put all his head, heart, body, mind, and soul into. He had lost something so precious and important him, and he knew he would never get it back. He could find a new love, a new life, and new path to follow. It could even be a better life. He _had_ founda better life in many ways. He had found all the things he wanted. He had the most amazing husband he could ever want, the most unbelievably wonderful children he could imagine, a career he loved, a house, a dog, a car, all the makings of a grand life. Yet, here he was, alone, at two in the morning, silently sobbing on his sofa in the dark over the loss of a life he could have had, the loss of the love that had taught him what love was. He was crying and couldn't seem to unserstand why.

Derek didn't know why he was feeling this sad nostalgia; all he knew was he had loved her. He knew he _still_ loved her. He loved Stiles in a different way. It was a thing he couldn't explain well. He looked at them like different books in a series. Paige was the first one in the series; she was unforgettable and amazing. She was the book that started it all, that could never really be topped. You could never make a sequel that was better, but you could make something that was also really fucking amazing in its own right. That was Stiles. He was another, longer, more complex book later on in the series. He was enthralling, and you just couldn't stop wanting to read more, to see what would happen next. He never failed to make you think, he kept you on your toes, and most important of all, his book was still being written. He was an ongoing manuscript, a work in progress that you never wanted to see finished and published. Paige, on the other had, she was already published and had been read plenty of times. She was that book on the shelf you always seemed to come back to, even though you knew the story wasn't going to be any different this time. She was a concrete, unchangeable collection of words that you knew but for whatever reason, felt the need to reread at random times for no reason at all. She was Derek's first love, and he missed her.

He didn't want her back, there was no misunderstanding that. He didn't want to be _with_ her again. If he was being honest, he really didn't know what it was he wanted, but he simply accepted that. He was okay with loving her, with knowing that he always would. He knew she had a piece of his heart that could never be anyone else's, not even Stiles. Stiles had so much of his heart, and so did their children, their family. But none of them had the whole thing. Derek left pieces of his heart with each of the title characters of the books in that metaphorical book series, and the more he cried, the more he knew he was okay with that, with all of it. He was okay with the thoughts and emotions that had been plowing through his mind and heart. He was okay now that he had reread that book, that first book. He was done with it for now, and it was time to put it back on the shelf and get back to writing the book he spent most of his time working on.

"Hey." Derek looked up to see Stiles was standing in the doorway, gazing at him quietly with an expression of fondness and gracing his features as he rubbed at his eyes, the tiredness apparent in his body. Stiles had a tendency to stay up in bed late at night reading fanfiction like the adorable nerd he was.

"Hey." Derek felt his lips turn up at the corners in a small, barely-there smile as he looked up at the man he loved, the man who brought so much joy and warmth into his life.

"You coming to beh—?" Stiles asked, a yawn cutting into the end of his sentence. In that moment, all the pain and sadness Derek had been feeling only moments before dissolved. He was okay. He was content.

"Yeah." The word came out soft and happy, with so much weight behind it that his husband would never know. As Stiles began to walk back to their bedroom, Derek called after him in a voice that was almost a whisper,

"Stiles…" His husband turned to face him, his eyebrows rising in question in that innocent way they did. "I love you." Stiles smiled at that, a gentle curve of his lips, a soft, vulnerable smile meant only for Derek.

"Yeah. Me too. Now come on sulkypants, it's dark and cold down here, and I need sleep." Yeah, Stiles was a good book. Stiles was his favorite book, and he couldn't wait to write the next chapter.


End file.
